


Servientis

by TheMoments (TBs_LMC)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Ancient History, Angst, Coming to Terms With History, Dalish Elves, Elf/Human Relationship(s), Elven Servants, Elven Slaves, Elves, Emerald Graves (Dragon Age), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Forgiveness, Genocide, Guilt, Inquisitor & Dorian Pavus Friendship, M/M, Men Crying, Non-Sexual Slavery, POV Dorian, Regret, Sadness, Sexual Slavery, Slavery, Tevinter Culture and Customs, Tevinter Imperium (Dragon Age), The Treatment of Elves Even In Ferelden, War, elven ruins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:28:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29125722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TBs_LMC/pseuds/TheMoments
Summary: What happens when a Tevinter and a Dalish who are friends, openly confront the ever-present undercurrent not only of their peoples' shared history, but of the continued mistreatment of elves even when one is now the all-powerful Inquisitor?
Relationships: Male Inquisitor/Dorian Pavus, Male Lavellan/Dorian Pavus
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	Servientis

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this story is Latin (my Tevene) for "enslaved."
> 
> I have played this game (mumbles into shirtsleeve) times and currently am on my third go-round as a Dalish Inquisitor. Every time I've been an elf, I have wondered how an elven Inquisitor could NOT react much more to what he or she experiences in the Emerald Graves and Dales locations, specifically. It occurred to me that with a Tevinter romantic interest, it also brings up a good point about undercurrents that would be there simply by virtue of being there between an elf and a Tevinter mage. But I also am aware that that mistreatment of elves isn't limited in any way to Tevinter. I'm reminded of how Cousland's Nan spoke to her two kitchen elf servants in DAO without noble Cousland batting an eyelash, and of the horrific plight of city elves stuck in alienages as second-class citizens, or having to keep the fact that you're an elf-blooded human secret at all costs because NEITHER species will accept you. The varying remarks at the Winter Palace and even the chantry in DAI losing their collective marbles about how the Maker wouldn't send an elf as the Herald of Andraste, all added to the stew.
> 
> Anyway, long story short is that all of this musing resulted in the following story.

**SERVIENTIS (enslaved)**

* * *

Dorian wasn’t entirely certain what to do. The Inquisitor _had_ to have heard him approach. It was, after all, difficult to be silent with vegetation underfoot every step you took. He’d thought to simply come looking for a place to use as a privy for later, when he knew he’d have to take care of that sort of thing after their evening meal, but instead had come upon a sight quite unexpected indeed: the Inquisitor sitting with his back against an ancient ruin, silently _weeping_.

The towering grey stone wall rose to a seemingly impossible three stories in height given the small elves that had supposedly built it so long ago. And while Dorian had been very well aware of how much Ghilani was being affected by this visit to the Emerald Graves simply by virtue of him being more silent than usual, he hadn’t realized it went so deep as this well of sorrow being let loose before him.

Uncertainty would not resolve itself, Dorian knew, and so he cleared his throat and said softly, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were here.” Just as he was about to tell Ghil he would go, the man spoke.

“I wasn’t expecting to be this emotionally affected by the ruins we’ve encountered today.”

His voice was soft, deep. Beautiful. Just like him. Dorian hung his head in shame. To be thinking about his growing…whatevers…for the Inquisitor at a time like this was inappropriate to the extreme and even Dorian wasn’t _that_ much of an ass.

“You talked of Tevinter when I asked you so many questions early on in our acquaintance,” Ghilani continued. “You were always so kind, answering everything I threw at you. I was simply…just so curious about you, your homeland.” He wiped at his face, looking up as Dorian stole closer, like he was stalking a halla he didn’t want to spook.

“Yes,” Dorian acknowledged, unsure of where this was going. “You did ask a lot of questions, but I like talking, so it was no great chore to respond.”

Ghil nodded. Sighed. “Tevinter is your peoples’ history. Wherever you are in your country you can look and find a proud past, vestiges of the Imperium’s former glory and current decadence.” He smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “You told me one could walk down a side street in Minrathous and see nothing built in the modern age, so steeped it was in history.”

A small fracture pinged Dorian’s chest. He felt everything very physically, and recognized sorrow and regret for what it was, for the sensation it evoked beneath his sternum.

“This,” Ghil said, waving his hand up and all around to encompass the walls in varying stages of decay. “This is what I have left of my peoples’ history. Crumbling, ignored ruins. A language all but forgotten save what little we have managed to preserve. A fractured society, though it can scarcely be called such given that no clan of Dalish even has the exact same stories as the next, whether of gods or Arlathan or Halamshiral or how any event actually occurred from the betrayal of Fen’Harel to the enslavement of my people. From the slaughter of elves in the Dales, to burial practices. Ceremonies, magics, ancient artifacts no longer recalled. Even the means by which once-grand structures such as whatever this sky-high wall was once part of were built? Nothing more than guesses by even the eldest and most knowledgeable of our keepers or _hahren_.”

Ghil brought his elbows to rest on tented knees and his head hung low between his shoulders. “Most of the time I guess I don’t think about it, but then when I see my face in a looking glass and my _vallaslin_ so glaringly stands out black against my skin, or I encounter places like this…all I can think about is that my own rich history was lost to _yours_.”

The fracture in Dorian’s chest suddenly split into a complete rift as the truth that he’d always felt so keenly underlying their every interaction smacked him right in the middle of his very existence.

The elf looked up. Met Dorian’s eyes. “And yet you didn’t enslave elves thousands of years ago any more than I personally chose to fight rather than lay down my arms, inviting the slaughter of so many of our kind by Andraste.”

A small glimmer of possibility, and yet Dorian was compelled to say, “I’m sorry that Tevinter historically has believed that elves were nothing more than chattel to be owned.” He swallowed hard, for although there were many arguments to be made for the better cared-for slaves of Tevinter, there were equally as many frightening tales of elves being terribly abused and used solely for the remnants of magic contained within their elven blood.

Everyone who’d read Varric’s _Tale of a Champion_ knew about the horrors that Tevinter elf Fenris’s master had etched into his very skin, and while that was definitely a more extreme negative out of his homeland, it was by no means the only one. Dorian might not have wanted the Inquisitor to believe that every tale of Tevinter excess was the norm, but abuses happened often enough that even he was now embarrassed for having said that, of all things, to a Dalish elf.

“Though you have no need to ask forgiveness, I know how much it means for you to receive it.” Ghil stood and gave Dorian a small smile…one that _did_ reach his eyes. “I don’t blame you, Dorian, for something you have so clearly opposed your entire life. But I forgive you just the same, for your own sake.”

“Thank you,” Dorian breathed, though it didn’t much make him feel better.

How did one get past this? Every single day the Inquisitor was forced to deal with nobles who thought elves were worthy of naught more than servitude and derogatory words. He had to force a smile, force kindness and civility, force himself to ignore the whispered flat-ear, knife-ear, tree-dweller, savage, heathen comments. The Winter Palace had been an exercise in disbelief over how openly the elven servants were derided and how unabashedly so many of the nobles had trashed the Inquisitor just because of his pointed ears and painted face. Was it any wonder palace servants had sided with Briala in the hopes that the humans would be sidelined in favor of their kind taking over?

And thanks to Dorian’s insistence upon remaining with the Inquisition to help fight Venatori cultists, never mind an original darkspawn magister, his presence meant that every single day Ghilani was faced with a mage from Tevinter, a physical reminder of the country that had done so much ill to elves, including stealing all they’d made and claiming it for themselves.

Everyone expected the elf to conform to his new way of being in a largely Andrastian organization called the Inquisition. They heard and then dismissed the fact that Ghil worshipped his own elven gods and didn’t believe that the Maker or Andraste were anything more or less than human historical figures such as Asha Subira Bahadur Campana, Queen of Antiva during the Black Age, or Archon Hessarian of Tevinter, who ruled during Andraste’s time.

Yet the Inquisitor was equally forced to contend with the likes of the judgemental Mother Giselle, who helped him when she thought she could convert him, but glared daggers at him because he dared to be friends with the evil Dorian Pavus of Tevinter and refused to deceive Dorian with respect to his father’s requested meeting in Redcliffe. How could the woman be so in tune with what 'the people' needed in their time of crisis, yet ignore that same compassion when it came to an elf and a Tevinter?

Even Josephine had made some kind of remark about how it should be obvious to Ghil’s clan that he no longer was in the same circles as he’d been with them. Ghil had told him about that one, and Dorian's jaw had dropped at the obvious _faux pas_. Even _she_ , an ambassador and a decent human being all the way around, had it _so_ wrong! They all wanted Ghilani to give up his own personal identity so he could become more palatably _theirs_. The more he acted like a human, the consensus seemed to be, the more acceptable he was as the Herald of Andraste - a title he'd been trying unsuccessfully to divest himself of since it had first been uttered.

Their eyes met, Dorian on one side of the chasm, Ghilani on the other. It was times like these, when the men simply stood there in silence with neither knowing what to say, that Dorian felt the differences between them couldn’t possibly be more numerous. At the moment their cause was united: stop Corypheus. But surrounding that single cause was a maelstrom that included lifetimes of pain, guilt, embarrassment, sad history, distrust, and fear. Even in today’s age the rampant slavery in the Imperium was a constant daily reminder of the fact that were Ghilani to have met Dorian in his homeland, the elf most likely would have been the collared or branded property of a Tevinter mage, and standing on the wrong side of the social divide to have even been allowed to _speak_ to Dorian.

The idea of Ghil being shackled, beaten, forced into acts that defied his gentle, kind nature, made Dorian physically ill. It hit him with all the force of one of Solas’ Fade punches, knocking the wind out of him. He sank to his knees, tears filling his eyes as he tried desperately to scratch out the horrible picture of Ghilani in chains, being forced to kneel or to be bled, from his mind. _This_ was Dorian’s legacy. He wanted to return home to make it better but it would all be nothing but surface gestures, for as long as the Imperium stood on the backs of the slaves who did everything for them, _nothing_ would truly change.

Tevinters didn’t sit around all day imagining new ways to fuck with magic like Gereon had done with his time travelling spells because they had other things to do…they did it because they _didn’t_ have other things to do. There was no way the magisters would ever start doing their own dirty work, and why would they start paying their slaves and elevating them to servants? They were powerful men and women who could be challenged by none in the heart of their Imperium. And while servants were one thing, even in Ferelden elven ones weren’t treated very well. Dorian had spoken to enough elves and Fereldens alike - and travelled enough with the Inquisition in his time following Ghilani - to know this much.

Instantly as Dorian fell to his knees, bowled over by the image of his elven friend in shackles, Ghil was by his side, always _always_ showing more concern for everyone else no matter what was happening with him.

“I’m sorry, Dorian, it’s not your fault,” he said softly as he rubbed circles into Dorian’s back trying to calm him. “I shouldn’t have said it like I did.”

“Are you…fucking kidding me?” Dorian asked, turning to look at the man he’d recently begun thinking of as his best friend in the entire world. He shook his head as he tried to make his breathing return to normal. “I am brought to my knees because of what I realized about the Imperium. About my countrymen. About elves in general. Your words didn’t wound me, Ghilani, they opened my _eyes_ and I am _ashamed_.”

“What?”

Now it was Dorian’s turn to hang his head. “I don’t know how what was done to elves, by Tevinter, by Andraste, by anyone who has ever treated an elf as beneath them in any way…I don’t know how that can ever be fixed.” He shook his head. “How can anyone unravel, uncoil, soothe or heal so many centuries of pain that still persist today whether you’re in the north or south? I mean, listen to the songs Leliana wrote of her time with the Hero of Ferelden – there was an elven assassin that traveled with them, an Antivan Crow, and even _he_ had been purchased on the slave market and trained from the time he was seven to become a killer! What choice had _he_ in his life, regardless whether the world came to consider him a fellow hero with the Grey Warden of the tale?”

“I have heard that tale, many times,” Ghilani murmured. “Zevran Arainai certainly became a hero to me, yet your point is taken for I am but an elf watching another of my kind being elevated beyond his station as few others have been.”

Dorian looked back up into Ghil’s eyes. “How can someone like me,” he whispered, reaching up and cupping the elf’s face, “tell you how beautiful you are, without it being misconstrued or at least having the underpinnings of the fact that elves were originally taken in as body slaves because of how aesthetically pleasing humans find them?” His hand dropped back down along with his eyes as he shook his head. “I want to be here, to fight my deluded countrymen at your side, but I feel as if my presence is nothing but a constant reminder to the most important person in Thedas of everything he must fight just to exist day to day.”

“I think,” Ghil said after a few moments of silence, “that you and I both find ourselves enslaved by our pasts.”

Dorian’s face, he thought, must mirror Ghilani’s own downturned visage as their eyes met again. “I daresay also by our present, if the way I’ve seen you treated sometimes is any indication.” He shook his head again. “I’ll never change the whole of the Imperium. Even if I fight and fight to change how Tevinters view daily life and the necessity for slaves to do all the dirty work, it _won’t_ change that they insist on having slaves do all their dirty work. And that’s to say nothing of how they’re treated, what they’re used for.”

On his knees right in front of Dorian now, Ghil made a thoughtful hum. Moments passed until he finally said, “Consciousness changes with time. No one population or country stays frozen in attitude. You are a prime example of that, as am I, else we would have found one another wholly intolerable from the moment I entered the Redcliffe chantry.”

Dorian heard his words. Met his eyes as the elf continued.

“Perhaps it begins with just two people forgiving each other their shared histories and starting afresh on a new page in a new book, writing a _new_ story, without allowing what came before to color what could be.”

“Perhaps…us?” Dorian asked, hope daring bloom in his fractured chest.

“Well, we are on a very public stage with the Inquisition, and you do like to show off.” Ghilani’s voice trembled and yet he smiled in a way Dorian could only describe as fond as he made the too-familiar joke. “Perhaps this particular change begins with a Dalish Inquisitor and a Tevinter _altus_ right hand.”

“Right hand.”

Ghil nodded. “It gives,” he stated, recalling his conversation with Cassandra as he demonstrated his words. “It takes. It beckons. It makes a fist.” He smiled. “Have you never noticed that I take you everywhere? Rely on your advice, your magic, your good opinion?”

“Well, of course you do. I’m exceptional at all of the above.”

The elf chuckled softly. “And I notice that your care on the battlefield is for all of us you fight with, to be sure, but that you very carefully ensure _my_ safety at all times. You are my shield, my protector, always.”

“Someone’s got to look after you. You’re always quite happily flying _la-la-la_ ,” Dorian sing-songed, “into the most perilous of fights with your bow as your only defense. Honestly,” he huffed.

Ghilani’s grin was wide, his eyes sparkling now. “And…it’s okay to tell me I’m beautiful. But only if I get to say the same to you.”

Was that hope he saw in the Inquisitor’s eyes? Dare Dorian believe that this story may be something _entirely_ new and altogether different even than a friendship?

He decided there were times caution had to be given the opportunity to find its own way into the wind, and surged forward to capture Ghilani's lips. They met softly but firmly as his hand came around the back of the elf’s head, holding him gently, possessively, carefully. Dorian held the kiss for heart-pounding seconds, and then backed away and rested his forehead upon Ghil’s, hand still firmly in place.

“Ready to write a new story?”

“I already started. Or didn’t you notice that I kissed you?”

“Oh, I noticed,” Ghil said softly.

“And?”

“And I think I’ll like writing this new story with you, Dorian Pavus.”

This time, Ghil initiated the kiss.

And _that_ story? Lasted forever.

**Author's Note:**

> According to Thedas Revolutions Wiki (https://thedasrevolutions.fandom.com/wiki/Dalish:_Lexicon), Ghilani means "to guide." I found it rather appropriate for the man who would become Inquisitor.


End file.
